-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the March 19, 1998
issue of Workers World newspaper

The Communist Manifesto: A clarion call full of ideas

By Sam Marcy, Workers World, 19 March 1998

[From unpublished notes written in 1983]

Of all the great classics in the treasury of Marxism, "The
Communist Manifesto" unquestionably stands out as the most
popular and widely read throughout the world. Bourgeois
ideologists, even the most virulent opponents of Marxism,
never fail to be astonished by the persistent attraction the
Manifesto has for each new generation of revolutionary
militants.

The Manifesto, written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels
in 1848, is a creative revolutionary synthesis of propaganda
and agitation, as these terms were originally defined by
George Plekhanov when he was still a revolutionary Marxist.

"Propaganda" was then understood as the presentation of
many complex ideas to a small group of people, while
"agitation" was conceived as the presentation of a few ideas
or a single idea to a large audience. Of course, there's no
wall between the two.

The Manifesto illuminates a great number of complex ideas.

It presents the materialist conception of history in
clear, brilliant language. It traces the history of the
class struggle from its earliest days to 1848. It analyzes
the rise of the bourgeoisie, explains its revolutionary
role--and not only analyzes the intermediate classes in
bourgeois society, but also mercilessly exposes the nature
of capitalist exploitation and oppression as it had never
been done before.

The Manifesto's diagnosis of capitalist society is at the
same time a prognosis of the destruction of capitalism at
the hands of what the Manifesto calls the "grave diggers" of
capitalism--the revolutionary proletariat.

NOT JUST A CRITIQUE BUT A GUIDE TO ACTION

Far from being merely a criticism of feudal and bourgeois
society, the Manifesto thus unequivocally points the way to
the revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeoisie.

Furthermore, the Manifesto subjects to critical analysis
the nature of the capitalist state, as well as the role of
the family, religion and culture.

Above all, in tracing the development of the proletariat
from its earliest days in mere handicraft production to its
role in large-scale industry by 1848, the Manifesto points
to the "proletariat alone as the really revolutionary class"
and the historic agent for constituting a new social order,
free of exploitation or oppression.

All of this is propaganda--irreplaceable working-class
propaganda. Yet at the same time it is also revolutionary
agitation of the highest order. It fans the flames of
revolution.

On the one hand, the Manifesto directs itself toward
presenting a succinct, coherent and lucid exposition of the
basic principles of Marxism. To that extent, it directs
itself to "the few"--not necessarily the middle class, but
the advanced sections of the working class.

On the other hand, with its ringing call to overthrow the
oppressors and exploiters, the Manifesto addresses itself
directly to the broadest and widest sections of the working
class.

It is this dialectical unity of opposites--propaganda and
agitation--so skillfully blended together that makes the
Manifesto such a monumental achievement.

Nothing could be a more crystal-clear call to the
proletariat than the final paragraph of the Manifesto.

It ends with this ringing call to action:

"Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They
openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the
forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let
the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The
proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They
have a world to win.

"Workingmen of all countries, unite!"

Such a mighty clarion call for revolutionary worldwide
action by the proletariat has yet to be surpassed.

Marx and Engels were not unaware that the working class
was a narrow segment of society at the time the Manifesto
was written. As Engels said in the 1890 preface to a Polish
edition of the Manifesto, "Few voices responded to
`Workingmen of all countries, unite!' when we proclaimed
these words to the world ... on the eve of the first Paris
revolution in which the proletariat came out with demands of
its own."

However, wrote Engels, "On Sept. 28, 1864, the
proletarians of most of the Western European countries
joined hands in the International Workingmen's Association."
And even though that International--the first attempt at a
world organization of the proletariat--lasted only a few
years, said Engels, it left a glorious heritage.

NATIONAL CHAUVINISM VS. INTERNATIONALISM

Just prior to the start of World War I, the working-class
movement in Europe, under the leadership of the Social
Democratic parties, reached the zenith of its authority over
the broadest masses on the continent. Immediately after the
outbreak of the war, however, the movement was virtually
smashed as a result of the betrayal by the Social Democratic
leadership.

The adherents of revolutionary Marxism--in reality the
adherents of the principles enunciated by the Manifesto--
were temporarily reduced to a small minority. The majority
had succumbed to chauvinism. They had forgotten one of the
principal tenets in the Manifesto: that the workers in a
capitalist country have no fatherland. "The workingmen have
no country. We cannot take from them what they have not
got."

The Social Democratic leaders' surrender to chauvinism
cost the proletariat dearly in World War I: millions upon
millions of lives lost and untold devastation and
destruction.

Nothing so much arouses the prejudices of the bourgeois
ideologists, nothing so much enrages them and exposes their
deep-seated chauvinism, as the question of "patriotism," the
"defense of the national interest." Today, more than ever,
this invariably means the defense of the capitalist state
and giant finance capital.

Any lie, any falsification will do to corrupt, vulgarize
and distort the real meaning and significance of the defense
of one's country, as it was understood both in Marx's time
and in the imperialist epoch.

Marx and Engels had written extensively about the autonomy
and unity of each nation. It is well known that they had
fought for the independence of Poland, Hungary, Ireland and
Italy. Engels wrote in 1893 in a preface to the Italian
edition of the Manifesto that the defeat of the 1848
revolutions resulted in "the fruits of the revolution being
reaped by the capitalist class."

"Through the impetus given to large-scale industry in all
countries," he wrote, "the bourgeois regime during the last
45 years has everywhere created a numerous, concentrated and
powerful pro letariat. It has thus raised, to use the
language of the Manifesto, its own grave-diggers."

Engels then added this remarkable thought, as pertinent
today as it was then: "Without restoring autonomy and unity
to each nation, it will be impossible to achieve the
international union of the proletariat, or the peaceful and
intelligent cooperation of these nations toward common
aims."

The progressive epoch of the bourgeoisie in the struggle
against feudalism--especially the period when Marx was
writing--demonstrated a trend toward diminishing national
differences and antagonisms. It was due to the development
of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world
market.

The subsequent evolution into monopoly capitalism diverted
this trend. Indeed, capitalism has not been able to carry
out a single one of its economic trends to its ultimate
conclusion.

The classical example of this is the failure of the
various trusts and combinations, through the process of
competition, to be converted into total monopoly and become
a worldwide trust or "super imperialism," which Karl Kautsky
thought would abolish the anarchy of capitalism.

As industrial and technological development grows by leaps
and bounds, monopoly capitalism, rather than narrowing
national differences and ameliorating national oppression,
exacerbates them. It is no wonder that the bourgeois world
is literally divided into oppressing and oppressed nations.

But this does not at all disqualify the class struggle. It
merely imparts a greater urgency for the revolutionary
cooperation and solidarity of all the workers in both the
oppressing and oppressed nations--in a common struggle
against imperialism, capitalism and all forms of bourgeois
reaction and feudal rubbish left by centuries of oppression.

The revolutionary contribution of the bourgeoisie, as Marx
explained, was in developing the world market, which has
"given a cosmopolitan character to production." This has
greatly increased the strategic role of the working class in
production and in relation to the class struggle.

Marx's words are even more true today: "In place of the
old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency," the
bourgeoisie has tremendously enhanced "intercourse in every
direction, universal interdependence of nations."

The bourgeoisie cannot create even the semblance of world
unity, despite the obvious foundations laid by the
gargantuan growth of the productive forces and the ensuing
economic interdependence.

Only the proletariat in alliance with the oppressed
peoples and the socialist countries can lay the political
and social foundations for worldwide solidarity. This is
precisely because only socialism, which is based on planning
and the common ownership of the means of production, can
purge the worldwide market of its imperialist chaos, its
unpredictable crises, and the reign of the arbitrary based
on superprofits.

Indeed, the world market, as Marx said, "makes national
one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more
impossible." It inevitably generates proletarian class
solidarity--the truest basis for bringing about the
solidarity of the human race.